The Rules of Goodness and Decency are Already Written

 

When Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked the Presidents of Harvard, Penn State and MIT if calling for the genocide of Jews violated their campuses’ codes of conduct, we had a ringside seat to the results of decades of trying to nuance and rationalize morality. Their answer: “It depends on context.”

 

Stefanik tried repeatedly to get these “leaders” to clearly state their universities’ expectations, but they would not. Shock and outrage rang out across the country. People wanted heads to roll and, before the week was out, one president had resigned. There were calls for more rules, policies, and regulations, which must surely be inadequate.

 

The real surprise is that the behavior on college campuses and the inability or unwillingness of the presidents to lead comes as a shock to so many. We are reaping what we have been sowing, and the risk to the country now is we will write more rules, fire a few leaders, and completely misunderstand how we got here and what changes are needed.

 

For years, there has been a focus on externally controlling what people say and how they act. The so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement has duped people into fixating on meaningless differences and has driven us away from the bond that is our strongest – shared humanity. “Micro-aggressions” were invented to fuel the perpetually offended. Division is a political strategy that has been forced into all facets of our lives, and we are in decline because of it. It’s time to get back to what’s important.

 

There is no freedom without personal responsibility. To live responsibly, we must know the difference between right and wrong and regulate our own behavior. Every day, we confront evidence that we are failing to teach our children how to live. People maliciously hate and harm others so frequently that we’ve come to expect it.

 

Love and hate are matters of the heart. They are taught.

 

Morality is not complicated. We do not need more rules. The rules of goodness and decency are already written for all of humanity. There are ten of them.

 

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